I know my penmanship has suffered a lot since my early high school days of writing essays on college-ruled lined paper. And with autocorrect or spell check, there are some words that I’ve just never remembered how to spell (sadly).
Now there’s a pen that hopes to bring handwriting back by vibrating when you spell something wrong or make a grammatical error. Or when your writing is just plain illegible.
The Lernstift — German for “learning pen” — contains a standard ballpoint pen and uses motion sensors to trace movements and detect errors. It’s powered by Linux and contains between €50 and €80 (or $68 to $109) worth of smartphone electronics in a thermoplastic or aluminum body.
- In Calligraphy Mode, it warns of mistakes in penmanship.
- In Orthography Mode it detects spelling and grammatical errors — vibrating once for the former and twice for the latter.
The inventors are launching a crowdfunding project and say that the first generation of Lernstift — with motion sensors and a word recognition system — will be available this August.
Image: Lernstift
